December 2022 Short Story Poll

I've got three short story options for you this month, and, good news, they're all written already, so you'll get this story after just a few days for voting!

I'm doing three new things this month- first, labeling the short stories with their genres. They're obviously all fantasy, but that's more a setting than a story type. (Genre is all nonsense and lies. Useful lies, but lies. All taxonomies are useful lies.)

Second, I'm adding a content warning to one of my stories for the first time- it's not too much darker than anything else I've written, but I haven't explored these specific topics before with any of my published writings, so I figured I'd give fair warning.

Finally, I'm doing something I hadn't originally planned on ever doing- introducing a new world to the Aetheriad entirely via these short stories. I realized that I just don't have room in my writing schedule to do a series set in the world of Larvanin, unfortunately. 

• -(Iopis) Replacements: A blacksmith starts insisting everyone they love have been replaced with malicious dopplegangers, and a Moonsworn healer must figure out what’s happened before it’s too late. (Medical mystery)
  
• -(Kemetrias) Blood in the Green Depths: Apchek is a newly minted knight, just given his suit of paper battle armor, when he’s sent on a patrol of the Grass Sea. It’s supposed to be quiet and routine, but when Bezan rebels bring down his ship, Apchek and his squad find themselves being hunted across the seabed.
  
  Unfortunately for Apchek, there are worse things than enemy armor in the green depths. (Action-Horror)
  
  
• -(Larvanin) Maskmaker, Maskkeeper, Maskmatcher: A craftswoman who sculpts magical masks for soldiers who have had their own faces disfigured in war finds herself drawn into a mystery when a customer wearing one of her masks commits a series of gruesome murders- only that customer that died three weeks ago. (Mystery-Horror)(Content warning: contains discussion of self-harm and body dysphoria, nothing too severe or descriptive.)